We left on Friday afternoon at 6:00 which was UPOC ontime plus an hour. Meeting at 4:00 usually means we leave at UPOC ontime 5:00, but Friday was particularly slow for us. The cast of characters for this trip was Martin O'Malley in his outdoors debut since he went into MCAT studying hibernation, Tico Gangulee showing up for another round of "getting really high" on rock for his usual adrenalin rush, Iris Antes back for more zany German one-liners, the ever lovable Liz Caffrey as the only person who likes the same music as Marty, and myself, Greg Kneser, as the guy who lost his penis. We knew that the trip was going to be good at 2:00 that afternoon when Marty and I picked up our van from National: Rastro.
Once we were finally on the road, it was a long and mildly painless drive. We took turns sleeping and driving and ended up with Tico taking the middle of the night long haul down to Asheville North Carolina and the scenic parking lot of the Black Dome gear shop where we parked and slept (in the van). We arrived there at 6:00 AM at which point we found out that the gear shop doesn't open until 10:00. We were both saddened and comforted by the late opening hour of Black Dome because we needed to get a guide book from them so we couldn't climb until they opened. On one hand, we had to wait until 3.5 hours after sunup to climb. On the other hand, we didn't need to feel bad about sleeping in. We slept there until 9:00 the next morning (the same morning?) when we left to get groceries for the weekend and some breakfast.
At 10:00 we returned to Black Dome and got the local beta we so desperately needed. Looking Glass would be wet after the recent rains for at least a day, but Rumbling bald was a great nearby place with bouldering, sport and trad climbing. We got a guide book, a hand drawn map complete with directions like "follow the serpent shaped road! Turn left on 'Boy's Camp Road' huh huh Boy's Camp" and headed up the approach to Rumbling Bald. As we approached the large granite cliffs of Rumbling Bald, the one thing that struck me was how similar the area looked to the Sierra Nevadas that I've seen around Shaver Lake and Lake Tahoe except that the towering pine trees of California were switched for towering deciduous trees.
Without a guide book to this particular area, we walked up to the base of the cliffs and started looking around for something that we might be able to do. After reading a little about North Carolina climbing on the web and in the April Rock & Ice pages 46-47 we knew that there were probably going to be lots of slabs with "eyebrows." We started the day on two different routes: Marty lead up a mixed route (sport and trad) that was about 1 full rope length tall and I lead a similar route with a belay station half way up. I decided to stop at that first belay station and have Tico come up to where I was so that I could get back the draws and pieces I had placed so far and so that Tico and I could get practice with a hanging belay. It was a pretty fun route: the rock itself sloped in quite a bit and was very sticky granite. As I moved up the rock, I noticed that some of the eyebrows looked like they would take a piece of pro from the ground but then were very shallow in reality and in other spots, rock that looked blank from the ground would have a giant hand deep two hand wide pocket that ate up pro like that was its job. Having spent most of my time sport climbing at North Table, Clear Creek Canyon, and in gyms, these routes seemed really runout with a minimum of 8 or so feet between bolts and up to 20 feet. In the end, Tico, Iris, and Liz all were able to do the routes and I think that we all got a lesson in what it's like to climb on slabs with thin flakes. The routes were right about at everyone's limits pushing everyone to a point where they fell or backed off at least once.
Tico and Liz decided that they wanted to get in some bouldering to get a good climbing pump in before Saturday on the Nose and Marty, Iris, and I started looking around for another route to lead on up. We used our same technique of looking for bolts or cracks that looked tempting and then heading up whatever it was. Unfortunately, we didn't have as much luck. Marty started out on lead and I belayed him up a large flake that formed a crack as it leaned against a slab. The crack was tougher than it looked from the ground and he ended up down-climbing on toprope after leaving a camalot in a poor placement at the top of the route "just in case." I tried leading it after him and got stuck at the same point: 5 feet above the last piece, 15 feet above the last good piece and 10 feet from the bolt. I sat there and thought to myself, "Self, Nikki's really nice and she really likes you. I kind of like Mom and Dad too. Hell, all your friends are pretty cool and climbing the Nose tomorrow is going to rule, so let's not die here." I backed down, removed the pro as I went and downclimbed the entire face. Looking back, I'm glad that I did. I wasn't confident enough on slabs to know that all I had to do was keep my ass out and stand up to get to the bolt; it took 4 more pitches the next day to teach me exactly how much friction to expect from this crazy North Carolina granite slab.
Saturday night we drove from Rumbling Bald along highway 64 through serpenty roads to the Pisgah national forest and the campground at the base of the South Face of Looking Glass. Several nice climbers who were already encamped were kind enough to point out where some nice flat spots were nearby to camp on and shared with us the secret that if we wanted a particular route we had better start out early to get in line: Looking Glass is a busy area, even on Easter Sunday. At night, we ate a giant meal of beans and rice burritos and had very little burrito blow-out. We talked about the morning and decided to wake up at 6:00 so that we'd start climbing soon after the sun rose. After stomping a bunch of Barking Spiders (hint for the un-initiated: farts) we all hit the sack: Liz and Iris in the spacious Geo Mountain Dome, Marty and I in the cozy Sierra Designs tent, and Tico in the more spacious but less comfortable "Rastro" (read: Chevy Astro van).
At 6:00 Tico woke up to his alarm (the only one in the group), thought for a half a second, realized how much pain he was in, realized no one else was going to want to wake up then, and went back to bed. At 6:30, Tico tried to wake us up and failed miserably. At 7:30, Tico tried again and got Marty out of bed. As the two chatted and went over to get the girls, I stretched in my sleeping bag, reached in my pants and tucked my manhood between my legs so that it was hidden, hopped out of the tent, pulled down my boxers and ran around the campground screaming, "I lost my penis! I lost my penis!" That was fun. I realized that if you are looking for motivation to get out of bed, losing your penis is a great way to find that motivation. We all ate breakfast, packed up, re-racked the gear, and headed out around toward the Nose Face.
We were the first car in the Sunwall trail parking lot. We grabbed our gear out of the back, and started running up the trail to make sure that we were first in line on the route. No sooner did we arrive at the base than 2 groups of 2 people showed up and got in line behind us. We had perfect timing, but were starting to feel bad about our size and the fact that we would be holding them up. Now, we realize that we should have let the first group go ahead of us because they wouldn't have held us up and we ended up costing them the ability to climb at all. It was their 4th attempt at climbing the route after rain, dark, and other parties taking too long had ousted them in the past. As it turned out, they started up the climb as we neared the top and then had a problem with low blood sugar and were forced to bail. I can only guess that if we let them pass they might have finished in time. I guess that you live and learn in climbing as in everything.
As we harnessed up, laid out the ropes, and got out our gear, we discussed who was going to do the first pitch: a nice 5.5 up to a wide belay ledge. Marty and I hemmed and hawed about it and then Iris said, "I lead it!" And so she headed right up it climbing with confidence, finishing it off quickly. Marty followed her with two ropes on his tail. After Marty got up and anchored in, Iris and Marty each belayed up Tico and Liz respectively. As they were climbing, Kelly and Chris chatted up a storm with us. They were two of the most respectful, kind, and fun men I have ever met. As for Southern Hospitality, Kelly cleaned off Liz's shoes, handed me several slings that I had forgotten so that we wouldn't have to downclimb to them, and they both helped clean up after our rope bags after we left. Tico belayed me up to the ledge as Marty got ready to climb the next pitch, a daunting 5.8 that headed up for 10 feet and then along a white dyke for a while and finally straight up the face through eyebrows to another insloping belay station with bolts.
Marty headed up this pitch wandering first right and then back up and left trying to get in solid pro and head in a reasonable direction. The move from the fixed pin at the bottom of the white dike onto the actual white dike is quite difficult, though the pin and a tri-cam were at a few feet below his feet. Beyond that, there was no way to see how high up above that it would be until the next protection. From talking to him afterwards, it seems that Marty was taking a step up onto the granite that felt too slick and he didn't have confidence in it and was then worried that he would have to run it out further beyond that to get to a solid placement. Faced with all this, he decided to back down and after re-assuring himself of his tri-cam and the pin, he lowered off. At that point, I took over the lead from him and started out. I removed some of the pieces he had placed initially to save them for later and reduce rope drag and I changed around some other small things and finally made it up to the same point he was at. For me, I looked at the move, tried a little further left, tried a little further right, and then just said that it was about time to be confident and either fall on one of my placements (for the first time) or send the move and learn just how far I can push the friction of North Cackalacka's rock. I was able to make the move and while the white dike provided a nice little shelf to walk up, it was a good 10 more feet before I found a piece. Kelly and Chris shouted up: "That's North Carolina for you. When in doubt, run it out."
The second pitch typified the rest of the climb: body position over feet and angle of your feet on the rock were key and it was unlikely that you'll have any hand-holds, but if you simply use your hands for balance and take small steps up, you can make forward progress. At the second belay station, we started to get in to a rhythm: by the time the third person was on the ledge, I had all the gear off of Marty (who had followed) and onto myself. I left the ledge with him belaying me seconds after Tico had made it to the ledge. Tico brought up Liz who belayed up Iris. The third pitch (5.8) was similar to the second. It goes mostly up and a little to the right and on up to two bolts on the Parking Lot Ledge. Again, I brought up Marty and then as he took the gear from me to lead the last pitch, I belayed up Tico. Once Tico was up, Marty took off up the final pitch (5.7) and Tico belayed up Liz who belayed up Iris. Marty led out up the Looking Glass and just kept going until we couldn't see him any more. Iris arrived a little after Marty had started up. She pouted and exclaimed because she wished that she could have led the final pitch. That's what "next time" is for I guess. After a little while I looked down and realized that he was at the end of the rope. I shouted up, "10 feet left" and quickly re-assessed, "5 feet left!" Fortunately, Marty was at the top where he set up a belay station and brought us all up.
Finishing up the climb was an incredible feeling. We all got to the top and stared around for a while exclaiming at how beautiful the North Carolina countryside was. Up top there is an interesting dynamic between the scruffy climbers who have come up and the bird watchers and romantic couples eating wine and cheese. One couple lost their cooler down the side of the hill and lamented the fact. A climber saw the cooler sliding down and started yelling "ROCK! ROCK!" Parties on the cliff echoed his warning down to the bottom. The couple looked at him strangely not understanding why he would exclaim rock when it was clearly a cooler.
We also learned a lot on this climb about climbing technique and gear/rope/group management on a climb. Iris had explained to all of us at the Parking Lot Ledge (except Marty who had already left) that she had great fun climbing without the use of the eyebrows because it forced her to focus more on the foot work. We all tried this technique on the top pitch while we were on top-rope and it worked surprisingly well. The basic lesson of this trip about climbing is that on slabs, confidence in your feet will get you up a lot easier and faster than searching for a decent hand hold to yank on. We also worked on several skills specific to making a climb go faster like judicious re-racking of gear, stacking ropes well, being quick at belay stations, keeping belay stations clean and simple to allow easy attachment/exits and to keep rope tangles to a minimum. I think that the first pitch took us as long as the last 3 did.
After we returned to the bottom, everyone ate at least 3 slices of bread, a quarter pound of cheese, and a half liter of water and orange juice each. It was about the fastest that I had ever seen food be consumed. Consumed can't describe it. It was more like inhaling food. We packed up all the gear, headed back to the car, and drove up the road another 100 meters to the pullout point that looks at the Looking Glass. We got a great view of the climb we had done, where it actually went, and just how large the climb was. For Liz, it was her first traditional climb and her first multi pitch climb. For Tico, Marty, and I, it was our first climb above 2 pitches and for Marty and I it was the toughest trad we had ever lead. As we drove home that night I think everyone felt a combination of exhaustion and immense pride in our personal accomplishments that day.
We arrived in Philly at 8:15 in the morning. Just in time to clean up and head to class. Aside from Tico the Cowboy wonder, everyone on the trip was applying aloe after-sun cream to our necks to soothe our recently sunburned and reddened necks. I guess we also learned the importance of sunscreen on this trip.
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